EAST LANSING - Could cannabis compounds slow the progress of degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's?

Norbert Kaminski, a professor of pharmacology & toxicology at Michigan State University, thinks its possible, and he's determined to find out.

Kaminski has studied the compounds of cannabis, otherwise known as marijuana, since 1990, looking at their effects on the immune system and whether they have therapeutic applications. That work has received continuous funding from the National Institute of Health since 1992.

Some compounds have known anti-inflammatory properties, Kaminski said, which prompted him to look at applications for degenerative brain diseases. He's most interested in molecules that, "may be able to act as anti-inflammatory agents but do not possess psychotropic effects."

“A very strong component of these diseases is that they are driven by inflammation in the brain,” Kaminski said.

Earlier this year, he contributed to a study published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes that looked at medical marijuana use among HIV patients. That study found HIV patients taking medical marijuana had a similar number of monocytes — a type of white blood cell implicated in causing inflammation in the brain resulting in loss of cognitive function — as non-HIV patients.

"Neuroinflammation is believed to play an important role in the progression of Alzheimer’s disease," he wrote in an email. "The condition termed HIV associated neurocognitive disorder has symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s disease."

If cannabis compounds could bind to the surface of white blood cells and prevent them from crossing into the brain, it may help to reduce the inflammation that damages neurons and leads to memory loss and a reduction in cognitive function. In the lab, he'll culture human white blood cells with compounds supplied by a pharmaceutical company, GB Sciences Inc., and observe their interactions.

Aspects of Alzheimer's and similar diseases continue to confound researchers, said Marcia Gordon, a professor in the Department of Translation Science and Molecular Medicine at MSU’s College of Human Medicine. In the most basic sense, the older people get, the more likely they are to have misshapen proteins in the brain that clump together, causing damage to neurons that leads to dementia and other symptoms.

"One thing the immune system might be doing is recognizing the protein clumps as abnormal and mounting a reaction to get rid of them," she said. "Attacking the protein clumps can damage nearby neurons."

In the 1990s, scientists observed that people who took anti-inflammatory drugs throughout their lives were less likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But treating patients who already had the disease with anti-inflammatory drugs such as Motrin didn’t cure the disease, Gordon said.

“Once a person has Alzheimer’s, suppressing the inflammation wasn’t the magic bullet,” she added.

Cannabis is designated as a schedule 1 drug by the Food and Drug Administration, a classification that delineates “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” This despite states such as Michigan legalizing medical marijuana in recent years.

“The Catch-22,” Kaminski said. “is that we continuously hear there’s no scientific evidence cannabis has any therapeutic uses, but there’s very limited funding for that research, so we can’t do the research to demonstrate it has therapeutic activity.”

"The Alzheimer's Association supports all legitimate avenues of research, including investigating compounds of marijuana and other plants," said Samantha West, communications director of the association's Michigan Great Lakes chapter.

"We have so many researchers working on this important issue, but there's no way to prevent, treat or cure (the disease)," she said. "We need people willing to participate in order to move that research forward faster."

Contact RJ Wolcott at (517) 377-1026 or rwolcott@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @wolcottr.